Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Crossover Thursday Conversation: Titans v Bears, Jon Robinson Talks Transactions

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

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You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked On Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland. This crossover Thursday edition of the Locked On Titans podcast is presented by Pepsi, made for football watching. This football season will be different, and Pepsi is here to get you ready for game day

no matter how you watch this season. Pepsi is the refreshment you need to power through game day and become a member of the League of Football Watchers because Pepsi isn't made for those who play the game. It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi, made for football watching. Go to madeforfootballwatching.com to check out the latest football watching content from Pepsi. We have a football game to watch this weekend as the Tennessee Titans take on the Chicago Bears.

And today, we will begin our preparation for that matchup with a crossover Thursday conversation with Loren Cox from Locked On Bears. Loren is fantastic. He's going to come on, give you all of the insight and all of the background to what the Bears have been doing this year on offense and defense, and give us an idea of how the Chicago Bears could plan to attack the Titans on both sides of the ball. So an excellent conversation coming up on this crossover Thursday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast.

Before we jump into that crossover convo with Lauren Cox from Locked on Bears, I'm going to let you guys hear directly from Tennessee Titans general manager John Robinson as he discusses some of the big roster moves that took place this week. Some of the cuts that we saw to Jonathan Joseph, Bo Brinkley, and of course Vic Beasley, and then the trade with Desmond King. So I want you to hear directly from Titans General Manager John Robinson as he comes out and discusses with the public those moves.

So an excellent episode set up for you guys on this crossover Thursday. I want to remind you I will have my Football Friday game preview tomorrow with my keys to the game, matchups to watch, fantasy, gambling, injury, score prediction, everything you could want from a game preview. After the game is played on Sunday, on Monday, I will have my game recap going over all of the big things that I saw, breaking down individual performances and everyone's favorite segment, Tighten Up and Tighten Down. On Tuesday, we will have our Tic Tac Tuesday segment with our Tic Tac 4-pack, breaking

down the four most impactful plays from the game. And Wednesday will be our Rewatch Wednesday, where I go over all of my additional schematic analysis. So a lot of great content coming your way Monday through Friday throughout the rest of the season, including our crossover Thursdays to get you ready for the game coming up that week. This week, we will have Lauren Cox from Locked on Bears, and I'm excited to dive into everything with you guys.

Let's get it. After a 5-1 team loses to a 1-5-1 team, it is only expected that changes will be made. And there were some significant changes made to the Tennessee Titans roster throughout this week, starting with the trade for slot cornerback Desmond King from the Los Angeles Chargers, and then following up with four roster cuts, defensive lineman Isaiah Mack, long snapper Bo Brinkley, cornerback Jonathan Joseph, and then the biggest move of them all from a news perspective, the cut of high-priced free agent signing outside linebacker Vic Beasley.

On Wednesday, Tennessee Titans general manager John Robinson spoke with local media and explained all of these different roster moves. Let's hear directly from Robinson about these moves. Audio is courtesy of TennesseeTitans.com. And first, he talks about why he decided to release Vic Beasley at this time. um, and, and release him, uh, from the football team. Vic Beasley's tenure with the Titans will go down as one of the worst in franchise history. And it was obvious from the beginning that there would be issues when Beasley did not arrive to training camp on time and missed the first 10 days of the proceedings resulting in a half of a million

dollars worth of fines. And Robinson talked about how that slow start and that late arrival impacted Beasley throughout the season. Yeah, I think that when a player can't come right in and get going, that certainly slows down the acclimation into our football program. Yeah, and it's frustrating for me that it didn't work out at the end of the day. That's on me that it didn't work out. But, you know, we made the decision that we made, and we're moving on. And while Beasley was not productive during his time on the field for the Titans,

it most likely was a lack of effort displayed in the Cincinnati game that ended up with him getting cut and Robinson spoke about those perceived effort concerns you know I thought I thought in practice he was it was coming along um there was there were practices where um and it was like we were turning the corner and it was a new defense a new team and he was you know he's working to figure all that out um and then you know when we to the games, it's not that the effort wasn't there. The production wasn't there. So that's what we're all judged by in this business is performance,

and at the end of the day, it wasn't good enough. Someone who the Titans hoping is good enough is cornerback Desmond King, who they traded a sixth-round pick for earlier this week. Robinson talks about what he sees in a guy like Desmond King. You know, slot corner there with the Chargers. Productive player at Iowa. You know, I think he had double-digit interceptions and PBUs, and he's an aggressive guy, good tackler, good blitzer,

instinctive in coverage, good feel for route combos, for finding the spots and zones where he needed to fit and being productive there. So I'm glad it worked out for us. Excited to get to work with him once we can get through these protocols. Another noteworthy cut the Titans made throughout the week was to veteran cornerback Jonathan Joseph, and Robinson talked about that move as well yeah I think with with J. Joe you know I've got I got a ton of respect for him um and and and what he's done in this league you know he's he's been a premium player um played a long time you know he's got he hang his hat on that um got a lot to be proud of

um but at the end of the day it was you, wanted to take a look at some younger guys and move forward there. And that's, in the end, what led to that decision. And then finally, Robinson talks about cutting an eight-year member of the organization and long snapper Bo Brinkley. Felt like that, you know, we saw it, you know, and was hoping that he would kind of, and I love Bo Brinkley. He is a pro's pro. He's a hard worker.

He's a great teammate. I've got nothing but the utmost respect for Bo and how he handles his craft. But it was just – it was something that he had kind of gotten sideways on a little bit, and we didn't see him know fixing it so um felt like we needed to make a move there so that explains it and quite frankly everything that john robinson just said there makes all the sense in the world beasley was not producing you have a guy like derrick roverson wyatt ray tazar skipper who you could give an opportunity to and see what you have in them for a much cheaper price going forward.

You look at Jonathan Joseph, same thing. Kareem Orr, Breon Borders, getting a Dory back, getting Desmond in the building. Those things are going to be more important seeing what those players can do than what we know we're going to get from Jonathan Joseph going forward. Bo Brinkley got Brett Kern hurt. It's a long snapper. You can't allow a long snapper to be that much of a detriment on your team like Brinkley has been the last two weeks. It's unfortunate. It seems like his bout with COVID and going on the COVID-19 list maybe threw off his rhythm and probably his career at this time, but the Titans cannot afford to watch Bo Brinkley make mistakes as a long snapper anymore. Taking a look at the trade for Desmond King makes all the sense in the world. All the schematic reasons we talked about for adding King. Good blitzer off the slot. Good in zone coverage.

Smart player. Aggressive player. Very passionate about football. Good returner. Makes plays on the ball. I mean, he's everything that you could want and the Titans literally stole him for a sixth round pick. So that is an explanation of all those moves from Titans general manager John Robinson. It is time to move into our crossover Thursday conversation with Lauren Cox from the Locked On Bears. We're going to start out with me asking Lauren some questions, move into the final segment where Lauren asks me some questions. And people who listen to the show every day,

if you had to guess which person talked the longest in their segment, who do you think it is? Spoiler alert, it's me. It's always me. Lord. I talked for about 18 minutes in the final segment to Lauren's about 12 in the first one. So did run a little bit long, as I always do.

I am long-winded as they say, but I don't think you guys are going to complain all that much. Excited to get into that conversation. Lauren is really, really intelligent about the Bears. So, excited for you guys to hear what he has to say. Before we do that though, I want to tell you guys about Built Go. From the geniuses over at Built Bar who brought you the best tasting protein bar ever, comes the best workout gel you can get. Whether it's a mental or physical wall, break through it with Go every day. Built Go comes in an easy 1.5 ounce package. It can go in your briefcase, your golf bag, your backpack, even your pocket. It's the best workout gel on the market because it's like a five-hour energy,

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to begin our preparation for this week nine matchup between the Tennessee Titans and the Chicago Bears. And to do that, I have Lauren Cox from the Locked on Bears podcast, one of the more talented individuals in this network. Excellent content and a pretty funny guy, in my opinion, if you follow him on social media as well. But ready to dive into some of this inside knowledge of the Chicago Bears. I got a few questions for Lauren here to try to get a feel of where the Bears are on offense and defense and what it might look like on Sunday from their unit.

So let's dive into that first. Lauren, how are you doing? Hey, I'm doing well. I think we're all still trying to recover from election night and everything that's lingered since there. But it's nice to be able to get away from that and just talk football for a little bit. Yeah, at the end of the day, football is a lot of our escapes, both us and our listeners, so excited to talk about this game

between two teams that, you know, despite the feel around these teams at this moment in time, still two very successful teams in the grand scheme of things looking at the season. So the Bears come in. They're teetering a little bit here after a very good start. And the quarterback spot has been obviously a big polarizing topic for the Bears. So the first question that I wanted to ask you was about the offense. What are your general thoughts? I'll give you an open canvas here. What are your general

thoughts on who the Bears offense is at this moment in time in the season? And what do you think that their ultimate potential is? And I preface it all by saying that it's funny that the Titans and the Bears are kind of like Frankenstein images of each other, where the Bears have a really good defense and a struggling offense. The Titans have a really good offense and a struggling defense. So I guess we'll start on the struggle side. What does the Bears offense do so far through half of a season? And what is your kind of overall feel on that unit of the ball? Well, the problem is they don't really know what they do. They're still trying to figure that out they don't really have a consistent offensive identity and they've just sort of been able to piece it together i guess to kind of keep

your frankenstein analogy going to just kind of body parts here and there and they made it work to get to five wins so far but obviously starting to kind of catch up with them the last couple of weeks as the quality of opponent has been stronger and so like what they want to do is you know put some tight ends on the field and run the ball but their their offensive line has been struggling all season and now it is injured beyond the point of any kind of semblance of an offensive line i mean they've got a covid situation they've got a couple injury situations they could start one or more rookie seventh round picks on Sunday depending on how the health goes of a couple of players that are going to be

potential game time decisions it they'll be down to one week one starter potentially on that line it's going to be extremely rough and so then as that offensive line struggles it's kind of hard to tell exactly how good Nick Foles is, exactly how good the running game is, and to some extent exactly how good Matt Nagy is, although we're kind of in year three, and there's a growing frustration among the fan base that he should be able to do more to help out his offensive line, to help out his quarterback, to help out his running game,

and we're seeing still some of the same repeating struggles from year in and year out that have led to a lot of frustration for a team that's still in a good spot to make the playoffs yeah and and that's kind of i had a hard time deciding how i wanted to dive into things because the feel around the bears is if they're not a playoff team but i'm pretty sure they sit at five and two at this moment in time that's correct right yes five and three I believe five and three now but I mean they're still in a catbird seat for a playoff spot so this team it feels like they're an underperforming team but in reality that their record still shows them as one of the

better teams in the league so my question for you with the offense and the things that you talked about is I know that they may not be playing their best, but they clearly have had some success throughout the year, pulling off five victories. So if the Bears offense is able to have success against this Tennessee Titans defense that has their own struggles in their own right, what do you think it would look like on Sunday if the Bears offense were able to get things going against the Titans defense? Yeah, we saw and throughout the season, we've seen like stretches of consistent Bears offense that kind of show you what it's going to look like.

And it was kind of like second quarter-ish of last week against the New Orleans Saints. They had a drive where they gave Nick Foles some time to throw, and he delivered a 50-yard strike downfield to Darnell Mooney and then a 25-yard touchdown to Allen Robinson, where there was like this vertical aspect of the offense that just hasn't been able to be there because they haven't had enough time for those kind of plays to develop downfield. And on top of that, right around the same time, it wasn't the exact same drive, they ripped off their longest run of the season, a 38-yard run,

where Montgomery made a couple of guys miss and then broke away in the open field. So it looks like consistent downfield passing because right now when it hasn't been working it's a lot of check down to the running back you pick up your three yards and end up in these sort of third and medium situations when they can't run the ball in between and ultimately they kind of struggle to like consistently pick up difficult down and distance situations so to me it looks like spreading the ball around, getting a lot of deep shots worked in there, and getting good pass protection, which is going to be a struggle against any defense

with the way this Bears offensive line is set up to play this week. Not so fast, my friend. That is the exact analysis we got about the Bengals' patchwork offensive line, and yet the Titans' poor pass rush was still not able to capitalize and even get a sack on Joe Burrow. So for any Bears fans listening to this at this time, relax, take a deep breath, and understand that you have the most disappointing group of pass rushers in the NFL knocking on your door.

So a little glimmer of hope for the Bears' offensive line, even if it's in a bad spot. But with that, talking about that Titans defense, defense on the mind, move over to a Chicago Bears defensive unit that has been much better than the offensive side of the ball for Chicago. So I guess to give you a similar question and lob up a similar softball as I did with the offense. Just give me a general idea of what this Bears defense has done through the first half of the season. What do they do well? And what are some of the things that have allowed them to be so successful?

You look at some of the numbers of the best third down defense in the league. They're the best red zone defense in the league. These numbers are not by accident. The Bears have a ton of talent. But schematically speaking, I guess, what are they doing out there that's allowing them to be so successful through the first eight weeks? Yeah, I think the main thing that stands out to me about this defense is how well they communicate. And it's not always verbal, but it's about players knowing exactly where they're supposed to be and properly exchanging

routes. If it's you know a downfield route concept and making sure that everybody is filling the space and taking away the types of throws that quarterbacks are going to want to make against them so if you know if the receivers on a crossing right over the middle knowing when to pass that off to your safety and when you're supposed to track and follow that and everybody kind of just knowing the rules of this defense which you shouldn't you know you should expect from a defense like this that's had a number of guys together in the secondary for a few years. The linebackers are both fairly experienced and they've got a pretty solid pass rush up

front that generally speaking allows them to stay aggressive, to jump on underneath routes for the most part, because they know that they have time or that the quarterback is not going to have time to get rid of the ball on some of the overtop stuff. So like last week, the Saints kind of got them a little bit just hurrying up and kind of dinking and dunking them downfield and started tiring them out a little bit and so often this season when the Bears defense starts to struggle it's because the offense has struggled for so long and the defense has been on the field for so long and haven't been able to really get that breather and get any points to help them out that they start to crumble a

little bit more but especially when you get in those tighter areas of the field in the key situations on third down you know they like to just go man coverage and say your wide receivers need to beat our cornerbacks and we're going to trust Kyle Fuller and Jalen Johnson one-on-one and we're going to maybe bring a little pressure up front and we're going to say that between Khalil Max, Robert Quinn, and Akeem Hicks, one of those guys is going to pressure your quarterback and our man coverage behind it only on primarily on third downs. They're just a man coverage team, but for the rest of the time, they're a single deep zone type team, a lot of cover three, and they'll try and show a lot of pre-snap cover two looks and roll one of the safeties down, but they generally speaking like

to keep that single deep safety, but then everything kind of goes out the window on third down. They're going to bring pressure from different spots stick to that man coverage and dare you and your receivers to try and beat them downfield and teams have had uh i would say mixed success doing that in between the 20s and then when it gets to be the red zone it's game over yeah i mean once you get into the red zone the field is shorter you don't have to worry about you know guys going deep on you it gives you less of grass less grass that you have to cover So that does make sense for a talented defense. And one thing that I will say is the Titans have been struggling against tight man coverage lately. They don't really have a lot of wide receivers who have the ability to separate against man coverage. A lot of

the separation created by the Titans wide receivers is driven by the scheme that they run. So that is something that is concerning for the Titans going into this game is their lack of man beaters on offense is going to go up directly against the strength of the Bears defense. And I guess maybe that's a good segue into my next question, which again mirrors what I asked you about the Bears offense. What do you think this Bears defense will try to do against the Titans offense? It's no secret what the Titans offense is trying to do. They're trying to get those zone runs, those inside zones, get Derrick Henry going, use the play action pass, the play action boot to get guys open over the middle of the field. How do you see the Bears defense trying to combat that on Sunday? Run defense has definitely been one of their big

weaknesses which does not bode well for a matchup with Derrick Henry certainly and it really it's just sort of been like okay can they live with enough of the big runs and still stop in the red zone and live with field goals and just get enough of the the get enough points on their offense to kind of survive and advance. And so I don't know that they're going to have anything new or special to try and do to slow down Derrick Henry. They've been, I think, a little bit vulnerable to the play action as well. It wouldn't surprise me if the Titans try and mirror some of what the Rams did

successfully against them, which was just kind of sticking it in the ground game, doing a lot of motion and play action and trying to get this defense looking in a lot of different places and a lot of different directions and just try and pound it on them as best they can without making it as obvious every time exactly how you were going to do it. So I think it's a big concern for me on how this Bears defense is going to be able to stop Derrick Henry. It's a question of can Derrick Henry do enough to, or I guess even can Ryan Tannehill do enough on top of what Derrick Henry's going to, or I guess even can Ryan Tannehill do enough on top of what Derrick Henry's going to do?

Because Henry's going to get his yards, but then can Tannehill and this receiver group, like you mentioned, not necessarily creating a lot of separation on their own, can they score in the red zone? Can they pick up a key third down situation if the Bears are going to get them into a longer down and distance? Because at times there has been space to run against this team, but it takes a little bit more than that to win. Well, again, I know that the locked on Titans listeners

are probably going to get annoyed at me here. The Bears fans will love to hear this, but, you know, the Titans did run for over 200 yards against the Bengals last week and still lost that game by double digits. So if there's any another glimmer of hope for the Bears, it's possible that they give up a big game on the ground and are still able to limit the Titans passing offense and prevent them from getting any kind of consistency going. So those are some really

great insights, Lauren. I really do appreciate it. That's inside information and context that we wouldn't have been able to get just through film study or just through the box score. So that's exactly why we do these crossover Thursday conversations. I hope everybody enjoyed that. We are going to get into the second portion of our crossover Thursday conversation between the locked on bears and the locked on Titans. I am going to get in the hot seat and have Lauren shoot those fiery arrows over at me.

All right. Welcome back into this crossover Thursday podcast. Tyler Rowland from Locked on Titans here with Lauren Cox from Locked on Bears. Breaking down this week nine matchup between really two of the more interesting teams, I think, in the NFL in terms of starting strong and kind of trailing off as of late. And I think given the Titans' undefeated start and then last week losing to the lowly Bengals, I'd like to start there. I think Bears fans can kind of look, you know, the national understanding of the league makes

sense that the Titans might fall to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They're undefeated. But what the heck happened in Cincinnati? What went wrong in that game? And I guess how concerned are you from a Titans perspective on that lingering, whatever issues they were lingering into week nine? So a lot of people in the Titans fan base would tell you that this is all the defense's fault. The defense has been terrible, and rightly so. The defense has been terrible.

They're historically bad on third downs at this moment in time with a percentage over 60%. So they have been horrific on third downs, third and longs especially, and that has really hindered the whole entire team. But it's football. All three phases are to blame for the Titans inconsistent play in the last two weeks. So the Titans offense specifically last week shot themselves in the foot and early red zone interception for Ryan Tannehill. When the team

was driving on first and goal, you just cannot roll right and throw against your body in that down and distant circumstance in the red zone. So a mental mistake from Ryan Tannehill. They had a missed field goal, which got no points on a drive and kept the Bengals up by 10. They also, A.J. Brown had a big drop pass, which you saw, I'm sure everybody saw, the 73-yard touchdown pass that A.J. Brown caught against the Steelers, the slant that he took across the middle and took straight up the field. He had the same exact play design and the same exact result from the secondary man coverage with one safety to beat if he catches the ball and he dropped it. And it just totally threw the Titans offensive drive out of a rhythm,

a few holding penalties when they were across the 50, doomed some drives. Now there's the conversation to be had of should those things totally kill a drive? Of course, a turnover will, but the other things, a drop, a penalty, a missed field goal, that shouldn't doom you. But the problem is that a Titans offense that is pretty good, they have such a small margin for error when the defense is giving up third down conversions and playing the way that it's playing. The Titans offense basically has to score over 31 points a game for them to feel like they can win. And that's a lot of pressure to put on your offense and your offense has to have a

great day every single game. And that's just not going to happen in the NFL. The other guys get paid too. And the Bengals are a better team than their record indicates in the national feeling around the Bengals. They are a better team than that. But when you combine the defense being historically bad on third downs, and that allows the offense to not have as wide of a margin for error, they start feeling the pressure. They don't play their best game. Well, now the Titans are going to have a really difficult time winning unless their offense is firing on all cylinders. And then you add in the Titans special teams, missing the field goals that Gostkowski has missed throughout the year. He's made some big ones, but he's missed a lot of kicks as well. Brett Kern, one of the best punters in the league,

I'd say the best punter in the AFC over the last few years, was just hurt on a play because of a botched snap by the Titans long snapper for the last eight years. So you have an eight year veteran who's been with the team as a solid long snapper. Now all of a sudden has the yips and can't give good snaps. It led to the Titans all pro punter getting injured. And then the kicker is missing kicks. The Titans have a ton of special teams specific players on their roster that don't play offense or defense that were literally brought to this team to play special

teams and and back-to-back weeks they've give it up big returns to their opposition in special teams in critical moments so quite frankly the titans are playing inconsistent football in all three phases right now but if i had to give out the most blame it would definitely be to the defense because the defensive vibe that is created it ripples and affects the rest of the team yeah let's start with that defense there you had mentioned before the pass rush is such a big issue I you know I think Bears fans can look at their roster in the depth chart and kind of see some names you know know, Jadavion Clowney, obviously a national well-known name, a guy who's been a consistent pass rusher in his career. You know, recent early draft pick Harold Landry on the edge.

Jeffrey Simmons up front on the defensive line. Even Daquan Jones at nose tackle is a guy who seems like he's been maybe not a consistent pass rusher, but a consistent force on the defensive line for a while. They just released Vic Beasley. I guess why, first of all, I understand Beasley was struggling but why outright release him and why hasn't this pass rush been any good well I guess my answer to why the pass rush hasn't been any good I'll start there it's a combination of things I know that everybody wants to blame it on one thing is it the coaches is it

the players is you know let's lock down who's to blame here. But the reality is it's a ton of factors. The number one factor, if I had to give out the most blame, would be the play in the secondary. The Titans can't walk their cornerbacks up onto wide receivers to disrupt timing and rhythm in offenses because they don't have the talent at cornerback, especially in the slot with Chris Jackson, the seventh-round rookie, who's the 115th-ranked cornerback out of 115 per pro football focus this season. That's last, if you need me to recap.

And then Jonathan Joseph, who was recently cut as well, has been an abomination on the outside, but I really don't like getting on Jonathan Joseph. He's 36 years old. He was pushed into a role that he was not expected to play with this team. So I'm not going to crush Jonathan Joseph. He's 36 years old. He was pushed into a role that he was not expected to play with this team. So I'm not going to, you know, crush Jonathan Joseph, who probably shouldn't be in the NFL at 36 years old. Anyway, that's a problem with the GM and the way the roster was built. So part of the reason is the way the roster was built, not having enough talent at

the cornerback position. Another problem is just guys not making plays. Everybody wants to, you know, what's the scheme problem? What's the play calling problem? But at some point, this is a quote that Mike Vrabel says a lot, head coach for the Titans. He says, it's not the X's and O's, it's the Jimmy's and the Joe's. And while I don't subscribe to that thought process, 100%, I will say that at the end of the day, guys have to beat the man in front of them. That's what football comes down to. Can you beat the man in front of you against his will? And the Titans are not doing that. Jadavion Clowney and Harold Landry, the Titans two edge rushers, are both in the top 20 in the league at the edge rushing position

in total pressures. They're both in the top 20, but the sacks aren't there because guys just aren't making the play when it matters and getting the quarterback on the ground. The Titans have missed, I believe I've tracked six sacks on the year through a missed tackle. Now that's not all the defensive line. Some of that is the cornerback that I mentioned, Chris Jackson, the slot cornerback rookie who's been miserable this year. So it's been a combination of the individual players are not making plays. The roster was not set up well enough at cornerback to allow the Titans to do the things that they want to do in terms of blitzing, walking cornerbacks up, playing press coverage. They don't have the talent to do that. But also there's a problem with the way that the coverage

is married with the pass rush. The Titans will do certain stunts and certain twists and certain downs, and they'll have off coverage on the outside. Well, a stunt or a twist takes a little bit of time to develop. So if you're playing off coverage with certain stunts and certain twists, it just doesn't make any sense to put those two together. The Titans will run a seven-man blitz or a six man blitz and all out blitz playing man coverage, but have their cornerbacks 10 yards off the ball. Well, you can't run an all out blitz like that and be off the ball off your wide receiver that much, or it's easy pitch and catch in a quick timing

throw. So the Titans from a coaching perspective, I don't think they're marrying their, their rush packages with their coverage well enough. I also think individual players are just not making plays even when they're put in a position to succeed. And I also think that the roster wasn't put together well enough, especially in the secondary, to do what the Titans needed to do to be successful on defense. So like everything, it's a combination of factors, but to me that's the problem with the pass rush.

And then as for Vic Beasley, he was unproductive, no sacks, no pressures in five games with the team. He was a problem in the locker room. His effort was a problem on tape. Also, from a financial perspective, if the Titans cut him today as opposed to yesterday, then he has the opportunity to be claimed by someone else, which would save the Titans around one and a half million dollars on the salary cap. So that's why they decided to cut him today rather than yesterday or any time before.

But the reality of the situation is if he's a problem in terms of his effort, he's putting on tape. If he's not giving you any production at this point in the season, who cares how much money he was worth and how much money you already paid him. You're only a fool if you make the same mistake twice. So the Titans decided we'd rather get a look at younger guys like a Derek Roberson, a Wyatt Ray, a Tazar Skipper, because if we're not getting production from Beasley, then the worst case scenario is we don't get production from them. And best case scenario is we get better production from a younger, cheaper player. So that's why the Titans got rid of Vic Beasley.

He wasn't producing on the field. He wasn't giving great effort. And quite frankly, his tenure with the Titans was an utter failure. He missed the first 10 days of training camp, lost a half of a million dollars in fines. He showed up injured to Titans training camp. He wasn't even able to play for the first three weeks. So just nothing about anything he gave to the team from a locker room perspective on the field, long-term potential, none of that was there. So there's no reason to hinder. Bill Parcells had a quote or a phrase, a progress stopper. Vic Beasley is a progress stopper. He doesn't make you any better on the field. All he does is prevent you from seeing your younger players and the potential that they have. So

that's why Vic Beasley is gone and I could not be more excited to see him out of the building. have. So that's why Vic Beasley is gone. And I could not be more excited to see him out of the building. So I get the impression from you. I think it's a similar feeling for a lot of Chicago Bears fans, too, that like there's a lot of I don't know, pessimism is the right word, but obviously a lot of valid concerns about the Tennessee Titans, where they stand, especially that defense and kind of moving forward. But how did they get to five and oh, I mean, I realized that some of those opponents weren't the most difficult at the time that they faced them, but they did beat a pretty good Buffalo Bills team in there,

and they played a Pittsburgh Steelers team pretty tight on the final score. How did they get to 5-0, and when they've been successful, what has made them successful? Well, first of all, the defense has been terrible all year, so it's not like they've been up and down but no they've been terrible all year the what kept the titans winning early in the season was they were playing defenses that weren't all that great so the offense was able to have good days and play its best and then on the flip side the defense was forcing turnovers that can keep a bad

defense in the thick of it. We've seen this, a Superbowl formula, either you have a really, really good defense, and then you have a manageable offense that won't lose the game for you. You know, the general game manager, some of those Baltimore Ravens teams,

the Peyton Manning Broncos that we've seen the 49ers from last year, very similar approach. The Titans from last year would not fit that model, but they'd fit the other model of you can do it a different way where you have a really good offense and a defense that bends but doesn't break and gets turnover hot. So the Titans were hot on turnovers early in the year, and they got back in the Steelers game because Big Ben threw two interceptions

on just bad decisions late in the second half. Otherwise, that game wouldn't have been as close as it ended up being. So early in the season, the Titans offense was playing bad defenses and they were taking care of business. And the defense, although it wasn't playing well, was forcing turnovers, which kept them in the game and led to victories. We saw against the Steelers, when you play a good team, you don't have your best day on offense and the defense still forces turnovers. You're still not going to beat that team. And then we saw against the Bengals when the offense is playing okay, but the defense isn't forcing turnovers. You can't even beat a bad Bengals team. So the defense was forcing turnovers early in the season. The offense was going up against worse defenses. And I think that led to the Titans being five and oh, now the Titans

do have some reinforcements on the way. They made a trade for slot cornerback Desmond King, who's a former All-Pro, looks like a pretty shrewd move from Titans general manager. He'll play slot cornerback, and also the Titans' number one cornerback, Adoree Jackson, who has yet to play this season due to a knee injury, should be activated from IR on Saturday. So this Titans secondary could do a complete 180 this week, and that could allow the Titans defense to be much more productive than they have been so far. So that's something that Bears fans should be watching for. But Titans fans are certainly hoping that those two additions in the secondary will

change this defense, allow the offense to have more of a margin for error, and get this team back to playing winning football. Yeah, so where's your confidence level, both in those changes being a positive difference maker and also sort of more generally in the Titans in this matchup? I imagine without the cornerback changes, you might be a little bit less inclined to feel confident in them all of a sudden turning it around against the Bears defense. But I guess with those, how close do you think this will be? And do you think that, I mean, are you expecting a Titans victory on Sunday? Well, I would tell you that I think this is going to be an incredibly close game.

I really do. But I do think that the Titans will pull it out. And you could call me recklessly optimistic. But from what Adoree Jackson, Adoree Jackson isn't one of the top five, top ten corners in the NFL. But just having an above average NFL cornerback compared to Jonathan Joseph, who shouldn't even be in the NFL. I think when I talked about the Titans not being able to walk up their cornerbacks, which limits the type of disguises they can do with their pressures,

which limits how effective their stunts and their twists can be. The Titans pass rushers are great in space. Harold Landry, Jadavion Clowney, get them out in space, get them on twists, get them on stunts, get them on loops. That's how those players are successful. The Titans can't do as much of that if they can't play tight press coverage. And you couldn't do that with the group of cornerbacks that they had for the first half of the season. So my hope is this changes what the Titans are able to do schematically on defense, get them back to doing what they want to do, which be, which is being a disguise defense rather than an execution defense. And ultimately I believe in the Titans offense.

They just need a little bit more margin for error. They are not Patrick Mahomes. Okay. Ryan Tannehill is not that he's played great. He's played well. I'm glad that he's getting his flowers to a point, but he's not Patrick Mahomes. Ryan Tannehill is not that. He's played great. He's played well. I'm glad that he's getting his flowers to a point, but he's not Patrick Mahomes, and he's not just going to line up and shred your defense.

The Titans are going to have days on offense where they struggle because they don't have guys who can just win one-on-one in man coverage. A.J. Brown's good at that. He's their best receiver there, but Corey Davis gets open through scheme, not his route-running ability. Adam Humphreys is good at that. He's their best receiver there, but Corey Davis gets open through scheme, not his route running ability. Adam Humphreys is good at that, but he's not going to be effective after the catch like the other weapons that they have. John who Smith, the tight end, who's very good, but again, he's not a great route runner. He's mostly his separation is

created by scheme. So the Titans, because of those limitations that they have, are going to be capped and not hit the potential of like a Chiefs offense. But if the Titans defense can get better, just get to league average better instead of one of the worst in the league, then I think it decreases or increases the margin for error for the Titans offense, gives them a little bit more confidence, gives them a little bit more breathing room, and the Titans can get back to that complementary football that they played throughout the 2009 season. So I would say out of like a scale of 1 to 10 or so, my confidence is about a 7, that the Titans get back to the way that they were viewed before the Bengals game as one of the top 5, top 6 teams in the NFL who are a Super Bowl contender by the end of the year.

Well, Tyler, it's phenomenal analysis from you, as always. It's the type of in-depth coverage we can always expect day in and day out over at Locked On Titans. Really appreciate you taking the time, and it's always fun to do these crossover podcasts, so thank you. Yeah, it's not often that you get to do the crossover pods with the guys over in the NFC, but I love all the content that you put out on Twitter. Love your analysis.

It helps me, you know, keep up with the Bears and knowing what's going on over there. And I'm sure all of the listeners really appreciate all of your knowledge and all the context that you provided today as well. Thank you. Well, that will do it for our crossover Thursday conversation between me and Lauren Cox from Locked on Bears.

I hope you guys enjoyed that and got a lot of extra analysis and some good insight to get you ready for this matchup against the Bears. Remember, I will be back tomorrow for a Football Friday game preview with my keys to the game, players to watch, fantasy, gambling, injury report, my score and game prediction as well. Make sure that you're subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast on whatever platform you do stream. Follow me on Twitter at TicTacTitans as well. Remember, next week after the game, Monday is our game recap.

I go over all the biggest turning points in the game. Then we go over our individual assessments and tighten up and tighten down. Give you a recap of what took place in the AFC South and the AFC. Cap off our Monday show. Tuesday, Tic Tac Tuesday. The Tic Tac 4-Pack. Breaking down the four most impactful plays from the game against the Bears. Wednesday, Rewatch Wednesday.

Giving you all of my extra analysis, my additional insights from rewatching the coaches tape multiple times after the game took place. And then we will be back again a week from now for another crossover Thursday, this time with the division rival Indianapolis Colts. So a big week ahead on the Locked on Titans podcast. Make sure you're subscribed on whatever platform you do stream. But that is going to do it for me today on this monster crossover Thursday edition of the Locked on Titans podcast.

As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.